An evidence-weighted functional-linkage network of human genes reveals associations among diseases that share no known disease genes and have dissimilar phenotypes. We integrate 16 genomic features to construct an evidence-weighted functional-linkage network comprising 21,657 human genes. The functional-linkage network is used to prioritize candidate genes for 110 diseases, and to reliably disclose hidden associations between disease pairs having dissimilar phenotypes, such as hypercholesterolemia and Alzheimer's disease. Many of these disease-disease associations are supported by epidemiology, but with no previous genetic basis. Such associations can drive novel hypotheses on molecular mechanisms of diseases and therapies.

Copyright 2009 Linghu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as Copyright 2009 Linghu et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.